Blank Check with Griffin & David - Contact with Jamie Bell

Episode Date: November 8, 2020

Actor, Jamie Bell joins this week to discuss 1997's Contact! Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch @ shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

You're an interesting species, an interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone. Only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we found that makes the emptiness bearable is podcasts. Okay, I didn't know you had a Morse lock. I didn't know I had a morse lock i didn't know i had a morse too that was great that was that was just wonderful sometimes i look at the quotes page and i dry run it in my head and i go do i think i have the voice but i don't know until i i start saying it out loud

that's a decent morse all considering i thought it was pretty good. Yeah. It was really good, actually. He's one of those, he surprisingly has a thing, Morse. Yeah. Jamie, have you ever worked with Morse? Have you ever done a Morse? I've never done a Morse. I've never done an Inspector Morse, either. David knows what that is, obviously. I do, I do.

Wait, one second. I've never been Morse'd. Never been Morse'd. I'm just, I'm very confused for one second. What is the unifying thread that would make it so that the two of you knew who Detective Morse was, but I wouldn't? For one, it's Inspector Morse, not Detective Morse. Yeah. But how do you know that?

How do you? There might be a British Islesles thing about it there might be a united kingdom thing about it potentially i don't want to you know famously said in uh in oxford i believe right am i making that up i think i think you might be right in the good old country of england right in england and we both we both sort of spent some time there we both sort of grew up there to be honest with you i think you probably spent about the same amount of time as me there because I left ages ago. That's probably true.

13 years for me, and I feel like it's probably not that different for you, right? It's about the same for me, actually. But wait a second. Occam's Razor states that the most likely scenario is often the correct one. Okay. What are the chances that you and I have been podcasting for five years

and I never knew that you grew up in the United Kingdom? Close to zero, my friend. You're asking me to put faith in the notion based with no evidence that you grew up in the UK. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, I did, as did our guest. But our guest never did a morse and he never worked with the morse but he never talked we love the morse yeah he's great he's great morse

he's great he's great this movie's got a lot of they're great people i mean fickner is one of the all-time he's great oh yeah i did work with fickner. I have worked with Fickner. When did you work with Fickner? I worked with Fickner on a movie which maybe has the worst title in the history of film. It was a film called The Chum Scrubber. Oh, sure. Oh, of course. That's right. Sundance classic.

And I think, if I remember correctly, he played my therapist father in that movie. Wow. Both. Double whammy. Oh, right, right. Yeah. I he played my therapist father in that movie. Wow. Both. Double whammy. Oh, right, right. Yeah, I have seen the Trump scum. If I could just contest your claim for a second, Jamie, I once appeared in a movie that when we shot it, it was titled Samaritan.

I was told that I was being paid $100 to appear in a movie called Samaritan, and then four years later, it showed up on Amazon Video titled Butt Whistle. So I would argue that's almost the worst title of a movie that has ever existed. Sure. I mean, had you known that it was Butt Whistle? I mean, I don't know. Maybe you would have been in it. I would have asked for $150 at least. that's like hazard pay yeah being in a movie called butt whistle gotta give me that butt whistle bump you're right griffin this movie is filled with guys scare it yeah you know i feel like you know angela bassett john john hurt

hurt of course rob low exclusively on television, right? No, he does one conference room scene. He's got a scene at a table, yeah. Right. Yeah. But it's a real cameo role, that role. But a lot of those. I feel like this is a movie where I forget that so many other big name actors are in it.

Because it was promoted so exclusively as like foster mcconaughey that then you're like man james woods is in a bunch of this angela bassett's in a bunch of this rob lowe's like uncredited we have to do a woods minute because i love him in this movie i he's i really he wrestles inside of me james you want to get lost in the woods i do i mean okay but but this is the post gump movie so it makes sense right anyone who gets called is probably like oh sure zemeckis like yeah i'll swing in i don't care this is also a 90 million dollar budget in 1997 yeah right uh so i just imagine that they go to rob lowe and they're like, we have like three scenes. Two of them are fragments on a TV interview.

We can only pay you $250,000. I said, okay, I'm so sorry. Right. Yeah. Oh, boy. All right, Griff. Griff, introduce our podcast. Introduce our guests.

We're off the rails. We're off the rails. We're off to the races. The orb has dropped into the ocean and it feels like no time has passed at all, but in fact we've already been podcasting for two hours. Folks, this is a podcast

called Blank Check with Griffin and David. My name's Griffin. I'm David. And it's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce

into the ocean. Baby. This is a miniseries on the films of Robert Zemeckis. It is called Podcast Away. And this is kind of arguably the biggest, the purest blank check. I mean, this is such a...

There's a specific category of the immediate Oscar follow-up. We've covered a handful of those. Right, we have. Right. It's not necessarily their most expensive movie or their weirdest movie, but it's the movie where they strategically

say, like, I want to make the thing that either A, I could only make, or make at this size or in this way right after winning an Oscar. Or B, it's like, I just want the freedom where I can make this and they have to back the fuck off, you know? It's also, it's like a project that was long tortured, long, you know, in gestation pass from director to director. And he gets to come aboard and be like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do whatever I want. And the studio that has been resistant to even making this movie has to just

be like, well, all right. All right. All right. Yeah. Whatever you want, whatever you want,

you made gum and it's a hit. I would say a hit for a movie like this. It's a hit. It's one of those films. It was kind of like right on the cusp where it was like no one lost money. And the expectations were either it was going to be a colossal flop or a huge blockbuster. And it kind of landed right in the middle. I mean, I don't want to jump ahead to the old box office game at the end of this. But I would say it's second week.

If you look at those numbers, it's pretty extraordinary in terms of the drop-off. It's such a minimal drop-off. Yes, you're right. For a movie this size, it's a great second weekend, which I think says a lot about Jodie, says a lot about the movie as a whole. I mean, for a movie this scale to come out, and it opens against something pretty strong,

if I'm not mistaken, right? We'll talk about it. Yeah, those second week legs is pretty extraordinary are you a huge box office nerd is this like something i yeah wow i'm talking about drop offs love the numbers but i am a little bit upset well more than a little bit upset so upset about this box office mojo thing it's i mean it's it's i know it's like old hat news old news and everything but like what the hours fuck if you if you listen to our swing shift episode which is the episode in which i call up the you know like i do my usual routine box office mozo is has suddenly changed

and i don't know what to do you can hear the panic in my voice i don't know i don't know what we're gonna do now we truly they audio boom bumped us to a smaller studio that week because they had double booked space and then box office mojo was nerfed while we were recording and david and i walk out of it and we're like well that's the worst episode we've ever done it's unreleasable it's pretty good and then you listen back to it and it's totally normal but we were just on like existential panic like white knuckling driving our nails into the table just being like everything we know has been upended the numbers is you know i use the numbers it's okay it's okay but it's not as good like the

layout of the old one was so nice it was so easy it's very fussy the numbers it's got lots of little you know texts that you kind of have to know exactly where to go i'm looking at box office motion i've looked in a while i mean it's all right i guess it looks like they've done a little work on it but it's not just i mean they messed it up and unfussy before yeah and just my favorite pastime was there was the drop down menu of adjust to today's dollars but you could also pick any other year. So I would do that mental exercise of like, how much would Interstellar gross

the same year as Independence Day? Like I would do all those thoughts experiments, you know? Like would Avengers even cross $100 million in 1975? Like I do the reverse. All that's gone. Gone. gone gone gone like vapor and smoke um but anyway anyway our guest today is a big fucking box office nerd he is also one of the best actors of his generation uh and someone we've been trying to get on the podcast for a very very long time because he uh implausibly listens to this show

uh ladies and gentlemen uh you know him from billy elliott uh from turn washington spies uh for many projects but most uh prominently he's motherfucking tin tin uh jamie bell welcome to the show guys it's such an honor and i know that as said, we have tried so many times for me to be on this podcast and it just hasn't worked out for various different reasons. So I really do appreciate it. And having the chance to come on now and to speak about a film that I... It's such a...

My relationship with this movie is so interesting because I watched it again recently. I obviously saw it for the first time as a child and had a certain reaction to it then. And I react to it so differently now. And I watched it obviously very recently to prepare for this. And just for some context,

I mean, we are, it is the day before the election. The day before the election. It's just so interesting that in this movie, the central idea of this is they're receiving something, a message that is going to change everything about how we live.

Yes, yes. And literally within 24 hours or less i mean hopefully maybe more uh everything is about to change absolutely no because right we're recording this the day before the election it will come out like five days after the election and we don't know if this episode is going to be released into like an apocalypse apocalyptic hellscape a state of relief or a state of greater confusion it's like it's it's and i don't want to uh make any further jokes uh uh putting uh my bets on any one of those three outcomes but but it is a very interesting movie to watch in that light i was thinking about how arrival came came out the Friday after the election.

Oh, that's right. That's right. Right. I remember that. And it underperformed, oh, I'm sorry, overperformed that weekend at the box office. And then similarly kind of like Sleeper held to $100 million, which no one thought that movie was going to be a blockbuster of that order, and then became like a fucking Best Picture Best Director nominee. And people were like, this kind of feels like the movie that speaks to this feeling most.

And this movie is an interesting counterpart to that. But coming from the opposite side where it was so hyped, there was so much pressure on it, but it wasn't maybe speaking to a cultural moment in that same way. That's the other thought I had was like Arrival was made for like, what, like 40 million dollars? I think 40, 50. Right. That movie was like independently produced and then Paramount acquired it. And it was like, you know, they were ready for it to be like a modest performer. And then it became like something more. And this movie costs $90 million. And you're like,

it probably would be produced for an arrival style number today with movie stars taking pay cuts and, you know, a scrappy VFX team, because in terms of what the big money effect shots in this movie, they are somewhat quaint by today's standards. And there are not many sequences that are that expensive. The first shot of the film is probably the most visual effects heavy, which is the zoom out from Earth and just keeps passing back and back and back and back and beyond the Milky Way and all that stuff. I mean, in terms of other other sequence the wormhole sequence obviously which we'll get to right but other than that i mean i mean i guess the machine but there's

it's not a movie where it's a talky dazzling right it's a it's talky it's feelings it's you know philosophical like it's not a movie where zemeckis is like, I'm going to flex a new visual muscle. Although he does pull off some, some little moments that, that do kind of like knock you on your feet, which off your feet, which I love. Like that.

I do. I do love that. He can't help, but do incredibly. Yeah. The mirror shot. I'm just thinking about the mirror shot. It's so funny that,

because the mirror shot is like, so it's such a reference point for this movie in terms of its magic and its trickery. It kind of comes in a section of the movie pretty early on. And then nothing really else kind of happens in terms of his magic tricks stuff until much, much later in the film. So in terms of Zemeckis, it's very, in his work, it feels very restrained from him.

Really. Maybe, no, I think inarguably his most restrained movie. And I don't know if that's because of the themes. I think Allied's his most restrained movie, but I think this is number two. Oh, Allied. Yeah, well, Allied is very- Allied's very buttoned down. But people like fuck in a car in that movie.

And there's like a sandstorm. Like it has some- I'll say this Like it has some, it has some, you know, some drama. This might be Zemeckis' least horny movie. It's a little matter of fact about sex.

People still have sex. You know, you got McConaughey at his prettiest. I made a note because I've made some notes. Cause that's what I mean. Yeah, baby. I made some notes.

I made a note that says McConaughey. Cause that's what I mean. Yeah, baby. I made some notes. I made a note that says, McConaughey is a priest who loves to fuck. True. Because one of his lines is, one of his lines is, yeah, I couldn't handle the whole celibacy thing. Uh,

you could call me a man of the cloth without the cloth. That's his defining characteristic. It's too horny to be a priest. He just, he doesn't want to give it, he doesn't want to give it up. I can't give it up. He's like, I'm not doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. We got it. We got to be a priest. He doesn't want to give it up. I can't give it up. He's like, I'm not doing it.

Yeah. Oh, man. We got to have a big summit about McConaughey. Because this is it. This is the... I guess a time to kill was the previous year. Time to kill is the breakout. And this was their anointment.

Like, here you go. Now you're one of the guys. And then I feel like this kind of benches him for a couple of years. It does. People were kind of like, I don't know if I like what this guy's giving me. Well, he has The Newton Boys the next year. Right. And Ed TV the next year,

which of course is one of the great performances of the 90s. Sure. But it's a movie that is very much the bridesmaid to Truman Show. Right. Jamie, have you seen Ed TV? No, I haven't seen Ed TV,

but isn't that kind of a i mean is truman show before or after that it's a year after yeah truman shows a year after no no because i remember ed tv was supposed to come out like four months later and they pushed it back a year because they were so worried about the truman show thing it was a march release you know they they weren't positioning at tv for oscars yeah uh mcconaughey incredible in it anyway mcconaughey for this dropped out of the jackal to do this right like he had the lead role for the jackal dropped out and did this instead wait the was he gonna play the jackal or was he gonna play the gear role or whatever yeah he was the lead but i mean you you would you would do it

right i i think you would if this was on the it's zomekis it's foster um yeah yeah it's a huge budget it's based on a best-selling book yeah i mean it's a kind of bit of a no-brainer really it's just the role isn't right for him it's undercooked i think also i i just feel like it the movie doesn't serve it totally well. I think it also like he's a guy where it took weirdly a long time for him to totally understand how to use himself on screen. He's one of those guys who just like always was unquestionably charismatic and appealing. But his persona is so slippery in so many ways. There's so many odd contradictory things going on that it's like when you put him in a lead role, you got to have a really deft hand to know how to use the way the audience is going to respond to him moment to

moment. I, I, I wonder, I mean, he it's post. So is, this year he has Contact and Amistad. So he's working with Spielberg and Zemeckis in the same year. Right, you're the guy, you're the guy. Yeah. And right, I mean, I think Contact's a good movie, but I guess both those movies are like seen as slightly underwhelming follow-ups to, you know, colossal movies from these big directors, right? You know, like, so know like so so and then after the newton boys and ed tv and u571 which like he's fine in but sure then then he has his whole i'll

just do like kind of like fun trash like you know wedding planner right uh how to lose a guy in 10 days sahara you know two for the money failure to launch like that just that kind of like what i'll just do like easy breezy stuff. And I don't know if that's a conscious thing or if that's just what's, you know, coming across his desk. I don't know how that works. I remember there being, I think it was a New York Times review when How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days came out, which was, I guess, the second of that run after Wedding Planner.

And they went like, finally, hollywood a decade to figure out what kind of movie star mcconaughey was but they've nailed it he's the sort of like lovable cad in the rom-com right and it felt like they were just like fuck it all in push all in and then he would do shit like two for the money or sahara that were kind of like this feels like his interests like these feel like his passion projects where he's like i like gambling or rock climbing you know but here's the thing and i i think he's a very sincere person like and he's best when he's sincere like i love him in like uh you know well the movies everyone loves the magic mike and mud and wolf of wall street and interstellar like that he's being very like sort of just sort of straightforward and kind of like mystically sincere in those movies but what's the unifying thread between those three roles you said in

particular the movie is kind of structured around like you constantly questioning whether or not you can trust this guy in different ways like right mud it's like is this guy like an outlaw is he dangerous right magic mike is like is this guy a scam artist is he on the level is he gonna fuck me over and interstellar is like where do his allegiances lie with family yeah yeah exactly he abandoned his kids yeah and then wolf of wall street he's basically like he's like a demon like you know i mean i love him in Wall Street, he's basically like, he's like a demon. Like, you know, I mean, I love him in that movie, but he's like, you know, he's otherworldly. He comes in, he sings a song, he like tempts him into this dark world, then he like vanishes. And then there's Dallas Buyers Club, of course, in that.

I just think there's something so naturally seductive about him that you can't position him as just sort of like a sincere innocent. There has to be some conflict of like, he's this guy on the level. Yeah. But, and I think opposite Jody in this, it,

there's just something about that, that pair up, that match up that doesn't, um, and listen, I love this movie, but there's just something about that, that does never really,

right from the first meet cute in that bizarre play in puerto rico when they're getting beer and he pulls the compass out of the cracker jet it's just if that whole from then on out it just never quite fires and never quite works they have zero chemistry right i love this movie it's a space movie it's it's a thinky space movie it's like right up my alley and i love both jodie foster and matthew mcconaughey but they that they are what keeps it or whatever their connection or just his kind of way of like flitting in and out of the movie is what keeps it from being like a whatever perfect you know movie that i watch all the time but i still love this movie jamie why did you want to do this movie what is your like you said you saw when you were a kid.

What's it, just let's talk Zemeckis. Yeah, I think, I mean, obviously I grew up with your friend Roger Rabbit and Back to the Future and The Death Becomes or all that stuff. But I didn't know that the same guy made all those things. You know, I think there's something quite extraordinary when you learn that, you know, this same guy can do, has all of these tricks up his sleeve.

He can do all of these very different tonally, you know, the way he executes his movies are all very different. I'm sure you guys have been talking about him endlessly recently, but, um, right. I think contact is just kind of,

because I, it was recorded off the television. I think it's kind of the perfect film to watch with commercials. I don't know. That sounds really terrible, but it's, it's kind of the perfect film to watch with commercials. I don't know. That sounds really terrible, but it's, it's kind of a movie that really excels in 20 minute segments with a break, 20 minute segments than a break.

You know, I, I, I, there's something about the idea of the unknown, right? There's something about reaching into the cosmos and something calling you back.

That is just inherently fantastical and wonderful and what if? And that really inspired me. And I love Jodie. I mean, Silence of the Lambs is my favorite film of all time. Jodie is an actor that she just, there is something in her conviction,

in her spirit, that is just hard to deny. I mean, like the final scene in this movie when she's giving that speech, I don't know what it is. It's something about her breathing or something about her tonality and her voice. is just hard to deny. I mean, like the, the final scene in this movie, when she's giving that speech, I, you know, I don't know what it's something about her breathing or something about her tonality and her voice.

I cannot, uh, not be moved by her. So I think if you put her in and this, a lot of similarities between this film and silence of the lambs, a lot of the themes that were, they're exploring here, you know,

Tom Skerritt kind of brushing her aside and institutional workplace kind of sexism, casual sexism and all that stuff. And she plays to authority so well. You know, there's that scene with Tom Skerritt as well, where she's like, he's kind of saying like, we're going to cancel it because basically you could be listening for years and hear nothing and everyone thinks you're a quack and crazy. And she's like, but it's my life. It's my passion to waste. And that's one thing with Jodie that I always have. Whenever she's voicing her own thematic element,

it's me. I mean, it's us. I just can't help but always side with her. So for me, it's purely, it's not cynical at all, which is kind of weird to admit, but this is a purely kind of emotional film for me. I will say that the film has some issues, maybe I would say, like the first 40 minutes, I would say. this shouldn't be two and a half hours long issues you know and i don't i i am a person who i'll always go for look look he took his big swing and he threw everything in there versus like the other version of this movie that is noted to death and you know doesn't have someone like zemeckis who can just be like no there's going to be 14 conversations about whether or not you

believe in god like and that's just gonna have to be in the movie but um yeah it's got some whatever it might what you said about cable i just want like i want i saw this movie like on video when i was a kid but once i was in a pizza place in manhattan a little italy pizza i believe it still exists uh down on down on down by city hall griff because there's a few of them those you know those i think that location still exists yeah okay and contact was playing on tv like on cable and i literally like sat there for an hour just like watching the movie like you know it was one of those things where i was just like i don't want to leave like because it was probably i think it was like the last you know half of the movie and i just was like i know what's happening next i'm sticking

with this like in a pizza place on a crappy little like 13 inch tv there was also something just uniquely kind of sentimental right about it very much feels like a 90s movie yes certain like camera moves this alan silvestri score that's tinkling on top right i mean he by the way i would say he's probably the second best actor in this movie very good performance from Bill very good but you know

what I mean it just has that it lulls you and there's a certain point in the movie where it does kick into gear it does kind of

start driving with a little bit more force and you kind of get hooked after that point there's this weird push and pull with Zemeckis where there is this very sentimental streak to him.

And there's this very cynical streak to him. And they always coexist in all of his movies. And his most beloved movies find the right balance. But he talks about and like people worked on talk about that he's a guy who thrives on conflict, like even inherently kind of one of the most populist, crowd-pleasing genres. Even if you're not making a comedy for everyone, you're trying to get a very specific response from the audience. So you really have to be tuned into the way people are going to receive what you're making. And then he just becomes such a successful filmmaker that he's always at the level of, oh, it's a new Zemeckis movie. Is it going to be a blockbuster? And so you feel those weird half measures where it's like he talks about, I mean, Sagan and his wife, Ann it just felt too expensive for a movie that's mostly ideological

without having big action set pieces. You were still going to have to spend a lot of money on special effects. And B, it just felt like it didn't have the wham bam kind of thing. It was a little too intellectual. So then they go, fuck it. Let's just turn this into a book. They write the book and then the book becomes a bestseller. So then the studios come back around, and they go, well, now that it's proven, now that it's a bestseller. So then it passes through hands over and over again for the better part of a decade. George Miller's the guy who comes

very close to making it with Jodie Foster, and then he eventually I think gives up, also partially because he was so fucking done with the studio system after doing Witches of Eastwick. I think he just was like,

there's only so many notes I'll take before I'd rather quit a project. I do. I do want to say a couple of Miller's things were one. He wanted the Pope to be a key supporting character. Awesome. Which I'd love to see it. Fucking rad. Two.

I think there was like a big climax where there was like a laser light show in the sky that's how zemeckis kind of like uh derisively puts it i don't know what that actually means but it sort of sounds like a close encounters thing or two thousand like this he said he loved the script and he got to the last page and there was like a bunch of like angel aliens doing a light show and he was like like, no, no thanks. Exactly. Yeah. So I guess Zemeckis tears that out, but that seems to be part of whatever script Miller was working off of.

I just want to know how the Pope was involved. That's what I just need to know. The Pecan Heel. It was about Jodie Foster sticking it to the Pope. Fucking the Pope. He was, it wasn't a priest who loves to fuck. He was a Pope who loves to fuck.

Yeah. Hot Pope. Hot Pope who fucks. Hot Pope. Yeah. Well, yeah well there you go exactly it's the original young pope i found this really good new york times article from uh the summer of 97 um talking up the sort of expectations and the fears around contact uh and the opening line of it is, Robert Zemeckis is scared. Not scared simply because his new film, Contact, is appearing in the most crowded summer season in movie history.

He's especially scared because it's a $90 million studio film that was made for, pardon the expression, grown-ups. A film that confronts the tensions between science and religion, intellect and faith. There's not a dinosaur in sight. But the thing that really jumped out to me here is they say they're talking about, you know,

Linda Obst being the producer who saved it post-blockbuster book, kept on trying to get it made. And then it was just stuck in that development hell period where, like, if a movie doesn't get made for 10 years, executives start to think that it's cursed and then they don't even want to try to revive it right it's like when your house is like on the market for too long or whatever like the house has not changed but people are just like there's gotta

be there's gotta be a problem like this just won't work but it is a movie that is not without um controversy right because it didn't doesn't coppola come after them and and try suing them because he hit for uh he thinks that sagan developed it with him yes right yes zoetrope right the thing that is wild about that is he sues him he sues them uh warner brothers um like two years after the movie came out or no no no i'm sorry i'm sorry like a year before the movie comes out not not not after and right after sagan dies like right after sagan died and he dies during production like halfway through filming the movie and the whole point of the suit is like sagan worked on this with me so it's so weird that he'd like snuck that suit in right

after sagan died so that like i guess sagan couldn't be there to be like yeah you know anyway it's very weird i believe uh that lawsuit was dismissed um well this is the morsel that really jumped out to me so it's uh 1994 zemeckis is editing forrest gump which no one could have predicted would be the movie that it was, have the impact that it had. He reads it and passes on it. And he said here, Mr. Zemeckis was offered the film,

da-da-da-da-da, but the plot with its ambiguous ending left him uneasy. That speaks to maybe the laser light show with the angels. And then this is his quote that's so fascinating. In the executive suites of Hollywood, there was the struggle that everyone was having with this movie, which is that it defies convention. It's a pedestal picture, said Zemeckis, a 46-year-old bear of a man who is alternately friendly and intense.

The whole movie builds on a pedestal and we don't put anything on top we don't have a huge payoff we don't send audiences running and screaming to the parking lot and then by his account forrest gump comes out has this meteoric success and like a year later he goes fuck it i'm probably the only one who could actually get that movie made right and he kind of makes it out of a sense of obligation of like this film should exist And I now have the clout. I have the hot hand that I can will it into existence and maybe try to solve that ending problem. But also, doesn't it feel that initial fear is actually true? Absolutely.

Because here's the thing is that it is a movie which goes, you know, wouldn't it be amazing if we heard? And then they're going to do all this business about, yes, we did here. And then they kind of go and then like, well, I'm just going to teach a bunch of kids. I'm just of go and then like well i'm just going to teach a bunch of kids i'm just going to like yeah i'm just going to show a bunch of kids how it's done you know and it doesn't really deliver on the idea of you know you kind of want to see that movie and you know i mean the movie ends you're like but where's that movie that you kind of want to know what contact two is because right the movie literally ends with them being like well you've taken your first steps and you're like we've taken our first steps we're two and a half hours into this thing

it ends up with aliens playing her father saying like you have no idea how big this thing is smell you later and just sending her back I mean the line where they go like so that's it and he's like yep that's how it's done for billions of years see ya

it just feels a little bit and he's right because he because what do you how can you structurally what are you supposed to do now like that you know well actually there's a theme park on this planet like let's go ride a bunch of roller coasters something like what's he supposed to do where's it supposed to go i mean and i love that about this movie and that's yeah to be clear that i think it's great that it is so unconventional in that way and also like you say griff made for grown-ups i don't think that's inarguable i don't know what a kid would get out of this movie although i you know whatever like a younger adult would but you know but but rated pg like yeah you know not no swearing really like nothing too intense you know sure like some sex but like nothing you know very very demure swearing really like nothing too intense, you know, sure. Like some sex, but like nothing,

you know, very, very demure, like aimed at the broadest family audiences, but not really for them. If that makes sense. Yeah. Cause it also has like that very sort of like shiny,

evenly like three point lit Zemeckis look and the twinkly like Silvestri piano notes, which almost feel at odds with what the movie's doing. Not like he's trying to hedge his bets, but he's like, can I sell more complicated questions, a movie that doesn't offer any easy answers, if I wrap it in the Zemeckis packaging that audiences have so accepted now? Like the Zemeckis brand was so strong. People liked the house style. And he's sort of like trying to find a way to make a movie that's somewhat ambiguous.

But I also, this is a movie that has like kind of four consecutive endings. And none of them are Big Bang endings. But it's like, if I give them four endings that like, one resolves sort of the spiritual aspects, one resolves the ideological aspects, one resolves it emotionally, will they end up feeling happy? But it also watching it made me think about this whole sort of subgenre of like adult space movies that I feel like have made a return in the last decade. And you have the ones like martian and uh uh gravity well no no i was gonna say martian and gravity are just the like survival in space movies right right right yeah they're like roller coasters yeah right this interstellar uh you know

i'd say close encounters to a lesser degree because that's a little more fantasy we mentioned already arrival absolutely the the thinky space movie. Interstellar is kind of trying to thread the needle by having a lot of action, but yes. Yeah, but also sort of like the thinky first contact movie.

Like the thinky Are We Alone movie. I even would categorize, even though it's a slightly different piece, Prometheus in this territory where you make this movie that's sort of like

very serious filmmaker working with big actors making a movie with an elusive marketing campaign where it's like this has huge sets huge special effects

and this movie is going to grapple with the biggest questions and there's always that mystery box anticipation of just like holy fucking shit Christopher Nolan's

making a movie about are we alone in the universe? And the expectations run so high and outside of Arrival, which I think succeeded because it was sort of under the radar. I feel like the first response from audiences is always like pretty loud disappointment. And then it will grow a sort of second wind appreciation afterwards because there's sort of just no way for a movie to answer those questions in a way that is satisfying and when you sit there in a theater opening night or even you watch it as a kid you're just like holy fucking shit movie starting at the end of this i'm gonna understand how the universe works

like i do feel like you you stupidly invest this faith of like this movie is going to single-handedly crack it and the best of these movies try to make it a little more ambiguous and leave you with more questions than answers because it's impossible to answer zemeckis himself said like that was his struggle with back to the future too is he always hated movies about the future because he was like it's just some guys making some shit up no one fucking knows that's why i wanted to get the future stuff out of the way in the first act and this is an ultimate like nobody knows movie yeah yeah i mean there is you know as a kid you know the idea of trying to wrap your head around the you know science versus religion science versus god and right um that whole second essential argument of the film.

And then realizing when she comes back, obviously that she's been on this experience that she cannot in any way prove. She cannot in any way boil down to science. She cannot come up with some sum or chemistry that will show everyone what she's experienced. And it's obviously a kind of very obvious thing to say. But as a kid,

I was so intrigued by that concept because I am an atheist and have always been and was never raised in a religious family. And it's just never been a part of my upbringing or anything like that. So that dilemma is an interesting dilemma, but it's not a dilemma that like sells tickets. It's not like a dilemma that makes people want to buy popcorn it's fascinating but it's usually contained to like pbs documentaries that my dad watched you know like and like national ga scientific american articles and things like that like which is why i think these movies get called dad movies because they are like you know you think of them in that way, right? Like Carl Sagan stuff is sort of like, yeah,

that's, that's, that's dad content. But right. This movie is coming out on fricking July 11th, 1997. Like, you know,

this is, this is Warner brothers, big movie for the month or whatever, you know, he, I, we will get to the box office game letter, but later, but you know, it's like get to the box office game later but later but

you know it's it like you said it's a crowded market out there yeah and spielberg has two movies this year right titanic is this year you know like right this is a no fucking around year listen i'm glad that it's i'm glad it's me because it's you know it's made for people like me or us yeah but you know at a 90 a $90 million price tag, that's a lot for me, for little old me, sitting at home watching on VHS. This is – oh, the Linda Oates quote. They're talking about how scared they are that they've invested this much money into a movie that doesn't have splashy trailer shots and is selling itself on like this is a movie for grown-ups and she says uh this film does not underestimate the american public if we're right it's fantastic and if we're not well it'll just make movie going just a bit more dreary like it's one of those

movies where they were like let's fucking take the swing and see if we can sell like big budget intellectual blockbusters but also that they sold it you know that they're t-rex in this movie is that sound yeah right yeah is that artificial sound of the aliens you know contacting us it's such an interesting idea that you know one of the biggest stars in this movie is that noise yeah i i i can't remember the trailer for this movie but i'm sure it must be all over that, right? It must be that sound. That's a great question, actually. Fade to black, that sound, to title, you know. Well, now that's all you would do, right?

You would structure your whole damn viral campaign. The other thing about this movie, I think, is that the very large array, which is a real thing, obviously, is like the third character on the poster, very much a part of the trailer. Two movie stars in a satellite. Yeah.

And it is kind of one of those things where like, it's, I love Zemeckis' confidence with that. It's the same thing with using Clinton. Like Clinton gives a speech about the Mars rock. You guys remember the Mars rock? We felt like a rock from Mars, you know,

that had like a worm in it. And we're like, life on Mars. And like Zemeckis sees that and he's like, that's all we need. We'll just use this. This is great. He's talking about life on other planets.

They were in talks with Sidney Poitier to play the president who is going to be a scripted character with multiple scenes. And then Zemeckis sees that conference and he's like, we can just use this. I did Forrest Gump. Like Zemeckis, king of the deep fakes.

The original king of the deep fakes is like, let me just copy-paste. Because the White House didn't like that. They contacted Warner Brothers after they didn't like it, did they? And CNN, after this, banned their logo from being used in films and banned their anchors from appearing in movies. Didn't stop Larry King.

No. He has the exception in his clause. He's the one guy they said was allowed to do it jamie i just want to i just want to tell you so the trailer i'm watching it right now the first 40 seconds it's just jody she's at the very large array she's listening on her headphones fade to you know a different shot of her at the very large and now it's nighttime and she's still there you know and she's on her car and And then 40 seconds in, it's the noise. And like, you see the like waveform of the noise

and it turns into her name. So you are correct. They were like all in on the noise as- Noise, sound. But the movie also like never gets more exciting than that. It taps into such a primal thing of like being a kid and looking at the stars and wondering. And the second there's just any proof.

I mean, it's part of that thing of just like the mystery of it is always going to be more tantalizing than any answer that filmmakers can come up with. Like the moment when they're deciphering the signal, all that stuff where they're figuring out like, oh, it's numbers, it's prime numbers, it's code.

And then the first image of it is a swastika. out like oh it's numbers it's prime numbers it's cool and then and then the first the first image of it is is a swastika yeah is of like oh i mean i just love that i mean it's just incredible because you go like god is this i guess this means they're pretty hostile i guess you know like they have a certain ideology that's pretty horrendous all that symbol means is suffering and anguish um but of course it's not it's it's it's they're just rebounding the signal i mean i just think that's incredible i love that that's that's probably my single favorite moment in the entire film that feels like such a carl

sagan idea too where he's like the kind of nerd who at a cocktail party would be like do you know that's technically the first signal that would have been able to reach space so if aliens heard something it would be yeah it would be but yes i mean like to talk about the 90sness of this movie you know excluding clinton and just like the idea in this movie that would not be the idea now of like okay okay so there's it we learn of alien life what happens and it's like well a bunch of spin doctors like start to you know figure out what to do with it and like the religious right is involved like now the movie is out there slinging shit on national television now it would just be

like nuclear war bruise like it would be much more apocalyptic and whereas in this like a rival you know that's a movie about like we need to talk to each other we're going to kill each other right like you know that's it and like you know, the general Zima, like, all that stuff. But this is more like it's just like, and, you know, guess who gets their hands on the cool alien signal? A bunch of, like, slick-haired, you know, Washington lobbyists. The worst fucking people in the world. It is funny that, like, the balance between science and religion and sort of, cultural pride versus like curiosity and all that sort of stuff like would manifest were this kind of contact made tomorrow, especially on Election Day. But the difference is any of those scenes where you have someone sort of slickly saying like, do we really want?

I'm just like, oh, it's odd to watch a movie like this where the government isn't going on tv shows and going like eat my fucking ass okay i'm not letting aliens step foot on our fucking lawn you cuck get out of here it's it's that it's like air force one is like that you know oh so independence day obviously so many of those 90s movies where it's just like there's there's this quiet disdain for people who work at the White House that is not going to come back around for a while. And the West Wing pilot, that's a couple years from now, that's another one that revolves all around, well, the religious right is on our ass. It just feels like now

just very quaint to think of them as like just to sort of you know fly in the soup fly in the ointment not in the suit and rob lowe flips like this is rob lowe coming off of his 90s where he's mostly playing comedy assholes right where he rebuilt his career as playing like the dickhead in a bunch of wayne Michaels movies. Wayne's World, Tommy Boy, Austin Powers. And then the Austin Powers sequels. And then it's like he does this in the middle.

This is sort of an outlier and then he ends off the decade with West Wing and now he becomes like the guy in the White House. Right. Yeah, he's George Stephanopoulos. Yeah, anyway.

But yes, Contact. One of the other things about this movie that is a little bit confusing now watching it as adults is why is McConaughey in these rooms? Totally.

I don't know. Do you know what I mean? Why is he in these places? It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Yeah. There's a scene where Jodie has clearly cracked something. I can't remember what bit she's cracked, but she's cracked something.

Maybe it's the blueprints or something. She's found the blueprints. And then she, and she's, and you know, and she's kind of saying, this is what we think it is. We don't know.

I don't want to like set off any alarm bells or whatever. Angela Bass is kind of shutting her down because she's speaking, you know, she's, uh, she just needs to kind of keep her quiet basically. And Tom Skerritt kind of takes over. And then McConaughey walks in and just like takes over the meeting yes just like oh oh here he is here he is

we need to listen to this guy like this guy has nothing to do with this didn't find and didn't discover shit and he's just gonna sit down and take over this fucking meeting it doesn't make it i just don't understand he's just like a christian philosopher like i don't i don't think he ever announces like oh i'm yeah i'm well his role is technically spiritual advisor to the president i just i just don't think that's actually a thing is it well it's like i mean like i feel like certainly there's always this feeling the president needs to have some like theological counsel but what they wouldn't be is this cool and this chill, you know? Sure.

Right. It's like fucking like Falwell Jr. has Trump's ear. But it's not some guy like this who's like, I don't know. Let's consider all positions. I definitely don't fucking think it'd be late to meetings. No, absolutely not. Casually strolling in. Yeah.

Fuck. Set an alarm clock. Right. He'll be some fucking fire andually strolling in. Yeah. What the fuck? Set an alarm clock. Right. He'll be some fucking fire and brimstone guy. Yeah. Right. It's an odd. I mean, that also speaks to why he doesn't totally fit in this movie.

Like the character's undercooked and he's not quite right for as an actor. I also think it speaks to like, Jamie, what you were saying about the inherent, like appeal of Jodie Foster is she's this movie star who is just like all focus, all determination, all business, especially for a female movie star to make that big of a career being like a fucking professional who rarely is dealing with like romance or comedy or her whole 90s. So unique.

Right. And 2000s like her whole, I mean's and this is the she makes anna and the king two years after this for three years before she made now you know she's fully in that post uh silence of the lambs phase where she's like i make a movie if i want to like yeah maybe and then like after an of the king it's three more years to panic room you know like it's she's and like you say i feel like she's so careful about the roles she picks she plays these serious intelligent interesting people who are very self-possessed who are you know like do not have to rely on right like some romantic interest or anything like that and i like that this movie basically starts with her sleeping with matthew mcconaughey who is at

the time like one of the prettiest boys in hollywood he's the next paul newman like people magazine is like we called it this guy's got the talent and the raw handsomeness he's the guy right and then just like piecing out on him and he spends the rest of the movie like sabotaging her career as alien ambassador because he likes her yeah so fucked up that he does that it's so fucked that he does that yes absolutely they should send him to a blog after that scene it's like insane your spiritual advisor to the president? Yeah. You're pulling shit like that?

You slept with her once and you're saying that you sabotaged her hearing so that you could maybe get a chance for seconds? She didn't call you back. Take a fucking hint. Oh my God. Sorry.

Sorry, I hate it. This fucking New York Times article, which I'm gonna keep referencing because it's like a treasure trove. But it's called Using a Big Budget to Ask Big Questions. And Foster's big quote here,

she says, the idea of someone searching for some kind of purity, searching for something out there that she can't find here was something that was very, very close to myself. I process everything using my head first.

I cope through my head. I cope with the disappointments in my life and the pains of my process everything using my head first. I cope through my head. I cope with the disappointments in my life and the pains of my life by using my intellect. That doesn't make me less vulnerable, but I do a good job of hiding it. And that's what this woman is about. And you're like, man, right. Perfect fit for this project.

Perfect fit for the tone. Perfect fit for the character. And McConaughey is in the zone where he's like, everyone tells me that I can sell anything. Like, he's's just like people are telling me i'm charming as fuck i think he makes sense for this movie in that mcconaughey has that classic sort of just like handsome hippie energy so you get it's just that the characters like as like we've been saying it's just an odd fit for like we found alien intelligence in the universe let's assemble the crack team let's get nasa let's get the military let's get the white house oh and call mcconaughey what's he 32 years old bring him in he should come the guy who wrote the secret yeah

yeah he wrote the book about how it's nice to love God, but also kiss like, yeah, he, he should be in on this one. Yeah. Let's, let's, let's have him guide strategy. That's the thing. That's just whatever. It's also a Carl Sagan concept. Yeah. Sagan's a wacky guy. I think he wanted to wrestle with like, I'm a man of science. Like, but I, you know, this is such a huge part of American thought and it's such a you know, the implications of life on other worlds are so staggering from a religious, you know, like I get what he wants to do with it. And also the movie needs to have some sort of emotional center.

Sagan's aware of that and Zemeckis says that's a big thing he latched onto where it felt like some screwball comedy dynamic of like Ninochka of like oh it's two people who are so physically attracted to each other, but I've completely opposed ideologies. But the movie just has so much more on its plate that those scenes are so

undercooked. And the two of them, you know, I think Foster's great. I think McConaughey's okay, but they just fundamentally don't have chemistry together. So then every 30 minutes when it circles back around to being like a linchpin of the film,

you're like, fuck off. This is not important. The movie's excelling when she's solving problems, right? When she's cracking it, when she's discovering, whenever she's on the hunt is when the movie's really moving.

Yeah. And as soon as it, as you say, slows down for one of those kinds of existential conversations, that has that, you know. Let's chat, right. Yeah, sure. movie's really moving yeah and as soon as it's as you say it slows down for one of those kinds of um existential conversations that has you know right yeah sure and it has to have this you know sense sense of uh loss or a love that wasn't quite reciprocate like none of that is it's just not reading at all so it just kind of uh it really slows everything down again and then you have to build it back up they don't really have flirty energy.

They do have, like, you get that they want to talk to each other, but it's not really, they're not flirty, I guess is the best way to put it. She's also seven years older than him, which is rare for Hollywood anytime, but especially in the 90s. So that's kind of fun. And it is fun to consider just the immensity of foster's stardom especially at this point like right where it feels like she's kind of starting to drift away from hollywood like like you're saying in like that quote you gave us griff where it feels like

most things across her desk she's like no thank you i guess she's also directing at this point right yeah this is a time period where she's like i prefer directing to acting i don't really want to act in that many movies anymore and then she spends years trying to get directing projects off the ground but also not taking acting jobs wait what's the is it flora plum nora plum what's the plum movie right flora plum was the one that she's been a decade trying to make yes that was the one that was with it was like set in the circus claire dane's russell crowe and it just like never happened right um anyway uh she ended up making the david sims biopic money monster go griffin i forgot she directed that she directed money monster a film i saw and reviewed

launching our patreon page yeah exactly god i forgot she directed that that is a weird right weird project directed the beaver that's like i know she directed the beaver but like but like money monster is like the last george clooney movie like i know now he has this uh the movie coming on netflix you know which he's in which that's great that he directed but that is the might be the last movie that he was ever in that was just like a star vehicle that he signed on to you know what i mean post tomorrowland it's post. It's a year after Tomorrowland. It's the year 2016. He's in Hail Caesar, which he's fantastic in,

and Money Monster. Anyway, Contact. He's also in Gravity, of course. He is? It's his secondary role. So good in Gravity.

Really good. That is one of his hits that Griffin always forgets about. Totally. But it's like a perfect example of that's him just being like, I understand exactly what my power as a movie star is. I'm here in service of the film. Like, I remember my dad not having seen Gravity saying to me,

I can't believe Clooney isn't getting nominated for Gravity. Because he just assumed like, here's this movie that's a blockbuster. Sandra Bullock's getting nominated in every category. Clooney's beloved. And I was like, you don't understand how selfless clooney is in gravity yeah he's not like dominating his chunk of the movie at all like he's not trying to steal it support work but he's using his like megawatt charisma in support of the movie yeah um that's i mean that's just example of like a movie that is is using a similar dynamic of like the guy is more casual and funny and the woman is more steely and focused and like emotionally bottled in space. But Clooney, I just think, has greater command. It's weird. The McConaughey thing.

I mean, we talked about the same thing with Amistad, where you're like, he's not bad. He's just like one step in over his head. He just doesn't totally understand his own effect yet. And directors don't totally get him yet. And then it takes like 15 years for him to totally come into his power. Yeah, he kind of feels too big for the movie in a way. It just kind of can't really handle him that that space needs to be filled by someone slightly more insular i think

because i think then also like that chemistry will be much more interesting because she's a little bit of an insular character too i mean she's someone who's dealt with loss she lost her mother she lost her father pretty horrendously after that point she's clearly like cut everyone out of her life and you know she's trying to make contact beyond the stars is having trouble making contact on the ground and with people in front of her. And like that, it never really kind of, um,

never really explores that between the two of them. I think that's interesting ground to probe in, you know, for characters. That's the other heart of the movie is, is the dead dad. And like, I know people like to,

you know, whatever, roll their eyes because it's such a common script trope but i like that trope and i have no problem with that trope and especially when it's this well executed and it it you know it hooks you zemeckis sort of like digs that in really early that there's plenty there like i don't need necessarily need mcconaughey but i don't mind mcconaughey as her foil i just the movie just can't sell me on the moment at the end where he's like you know the secret other reason is that i really like you where i'm just like no i don't think so i don't i don't think

either of them buy this like he'd be okay if he's just floating around i also really fucking hate that you know you know that the last line is given to him before he gets in the limo yeah that just really bothers me i don't know why you know and it's very touching like i love her in the car and i love her reaching out and she's so good physically and her eyes are so connective this movie is like about jodie foster's eyes as much as it's about anything yeah yes i agree um so and i just i really dislike that that moment is given to him and i know it's it's a reactionary moment and she sells it and kills it and everything but um she's so undermined in the rest of the movie constantly by tom scarrett by the president by all the you know angela bassett

all these people. James Woods, obviously. It just feels like in that last moment, I want to have her say her fucking thing and walk out and drive off into the sunset without him having to qualify her. It's one of those Spielberg-y things of like, I don't trust that the audience got it. I want to underline everything as directly as possible. Let's give it to the guy who's light and charming

rather than the woman who's been sort of like brazen the entire film. I do think watching it, like, I feel like I'd like this movie a full half star more. How many stars do you like it overall?

I give it like, I'd say a three out of four. Okay. Right? Or like a 3.5 out of five this is this is like a nine to me geez this is like a 4.5 to me i mean well i'm saying it would be a nine for me if it ended with not literally but the final note it ended on was her hearing where she attests that it happened, but she doesn't have any proof. Like that's the most interesting lingering thought of the movie. The ending should be this, right? She does this thing with James Woods in whatever that testimony that she's giving. Which is fucking, and she crushes it and she's brilliant in it.

Incredible. I watched it last night and was like, I'm going to cry. She's giving. Which is fucking, and she crushes it and she's brilliant in it. Incredible. I watched her last night and was like, I'm going to cry. She's brilliant. But then it should end with Angela Bassett saying what's interesting about it is it recorded 18 hours of it.

That is interesting, isn't it? Black. I would also accept that. I think the McConaughey given the moral out of the car doesn't work for me. Yeah, right.

Woods' reptile face in that scene. And in every scene that he's in is so good. One of, one of my greatest conflicts in my entire life is that James Woods is like one of my five favorite actors of all time. I love him so much. And like, especially in this nineties run where he's just popping up like,

and he like casino, you know, Nixon, like it's just, just just he'll just give you 20 minutes and like play a super asshole but then like in the virgin suicides play like a genuinely kind of sweet befuddled guy like i he was such a versatile actor yeah i know he barely works him he really just doesn't work anymore right he he's it's he's all in on twitter like he has a shadow band yeah yeah he hasn't really made a movie since white house down which is uh seven years ago i love his reaction to the swastika when it kind of comes clear on the monitor he just goes okay i love that reaction. It's great. Okay.

Oh, God. You know what? I feel like the ending should be one of two things. It should be her giving the testimony, and then they find the tape, and it lingers with the question of, are they ever going to release this? It's still sort of a leap of faith thing.

Or it should be her giving the testimony, and then it cuts to the ending with her teaching the kids. But I feel like you either want it to be, she was never able to prove it, be her giving the testimony and then it cuts to the ending with her teaching the kids but i feel like you either want it to be she was never able to prove it but she's devoted the rest of her life to trying to convince other people to ask the big questions or it should be she couldn't prove it and we don't know whether or not the government decides to back her up we're talking about the end of the movie but i she would be a messianic figure to people. And there's that hint of it, like when she walks out of the Capitol

and there's people holding signs. Which I love that. Yeah. I love that too. And I just love that little implication of like, there's that available to her and she has gone more the path of like, well, I'm just going to do my work

and like, you know, like I'm just going to be over here. The thing with the kids just kind of feels like something so monumental has happened to the world and to humanity that just for her to suddenly be doing that it just feels like it kind of undermines what we what we've just experienced for the last two and a half hours or whatever it is that we've said right it only works for me if it happens under the guise of she's been completely discredited. You know?

Like, this is her one hell Mary pass. It's the lack of confidence in having all four of those endings. Of, like, the testimony, McConaughey offering the moral, the discovery of the tape, and then her of the kids. It just makes it kind of messy. I guess if they'd said, like, we can't believe we're adding more scenes to this fucking movie but if there was a scene where it's like you clearly know that publicly everyone knows she's full of shit right everyone knows that it's fucking bullshit she like they lied it's just a bunch of more government lies lies lies whatever that then you know her teaching to these kids is like keep looking keep looking for the stars right

saccharine but i yeah that feels don't stop believing, kind of thing. No, that's the thing. It's like, it feels like you're watching choose your own adventure endings. Like, it's like those two scenes would work together. This one would work if this one was cut out. But it's just, I think, their awareness of they don't have the pedestal. Like, they don't have the thing in the pedestal that's going to totally satisfy people i've just realized we've gotten so far into this without mentioning uh jack bucey oh we gotta talk bucey i mean how the fuck how was that is he not

come up oh i mean god well guys look i mean there's he is like using the very large array or using the arecibo Observatory. He's just like, we'll just use Jake Busey. He will communicate everything you need to know. Just the sight of him with long blonde hair. That's it. That'll shake America to its core. Right.

America to its core. Right. I wonder what the breakdown looks like for this, where it's like a religious cult leader needs to look fucking weird. Audience needs to remember him after limited screen time.

What about that scene where he's in the, whatever the machine is, and he's in disguise. And she's looking at the monitor. And people who are listening are not going to see what i'm doing but i'm just going to you know he kind of does this he does the world's longest turn to camera and then like moves towards it stares down the lens finds his light it's what jamie did he passes his eyes across the screen like a snake.

And he's smiling. Yes. He's like, I'm going to get away with it. Like a great plan for. It's like a supernatural evil. But he's Bailey in the movie makes such a fucking impact. That's the thing. He understands.

Right. Does he have a line? Like, does he say anything? Like those group scenes. He's yelling. When they think the contact, the launch, and he say like those group scenes when they're like when they think the the contact the launch and he's like yelling right he doesn't have dialogue with anybody you hear yelling is a line david yelling is a line lines where we're yelling david but it's not like he's like i'm here because you know like there's not that moment but like

like the sight of him you're like oh i know why he's there and i don't like it like that's like the the just the play-by-play of him blowing up i by the way my wife is just like didn't that cost like a trillion dollars like i've been talking about how expensive this thing is he blows it up in five seconds but like he's on the camera and she's like he's not supposed to be there everyone get out of here he's like what's going on jody the guy with like the bleached eyebrows and that really creepy like sex offender wig oh that one yes okay oh okay and like try and get in touch with scarrett and you know meanwhile jake bucey's just like slowly removing a trigger

from his pocket while everyone's just like well well, wait, what's going on though? Wait, walk me through it. He's still just making snake eyes at everybody. This movie has inexcusable reasons for people showing up in certain places at certain times. It's just, it's kind of insane. I do love the sort of like cyclical nature of her relationship with Skerritt, where he keeps on popping up as being like the figure of obstruction for her, because that just feels so true to like the bureaucracy of government, of trying to work in science around a culture that doesn't really respect it. your head of the guy who's always one step above her limiting her i mean that's that's another one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when they're right before the launch and he's just like look i

actually agree with you it sucks that uh 90 of our country will not swallow anything unless we project some sense of religious purity i wish i could give the answer you could but if i did i wouldn't be wearing this jumpsuit. Smell you later. That's because he said he believes in God in his own testimony when she hasn't. Right, that's right. That's right. Right, which is also such a good scene. And that scene is kind of only undone by McConaughey's performance is so odd in it because what he's trying to earmark is the this is a crisis of romance for him

right which we haven't bought into that's all right but that scene is so great where you're just like okay she understands the challenge she understands how like diverse the candidates are going to be how like you know strong and and varied this board is of the selectors uh but she makes it to that hearing she's nailing everything and then they ask her that one question and it's like here's a person who fundamentally cannot lie she is incapable of bullshitting and giving some wishy-washy answer about her belief in order to get the job but the second they ask her she's fucked she knows she's fucked but don't worry because they built too. Well,

that's the thing. It's like, so my wife's never seen this movie. She's white Forky, my wife, Forky, sorry. Um,

and she's like, Oh, so she doesn't get to go to space. And I'm like, now she's, you know, she'll go to space. She's Jodie Foster.

She gets a great, you know, I'm like, it's not like the movie. It's like, anyway, Tom Skerritt got to go roll the credits, you know,

like, you know, but then he comes back and he's like, yeah, aliens it was cool like they look like jody foster's dad for some reason they said this is the form we chose to take we thought she was gonna make it it it looked like the guy from the rock not ed harris but you know the other guy he's like he's like really locked in he's like the dad slash therapist and chum scrubber the other guy he's like he's like really locked in he's like the dad slash therapist and chum scrubber have you seen he's like but anyway and like and then and forky

was just like i mean it makes sense there's no way she like a lady would get to do that like it would be too easy if she got to do it like you know especially at this point in time at this you know like you know it's just like no jodie foster't, they can't just be like, now you're the lady. You're, you're, you're going to do it. It's, they're going to pick Tom Skerritt. It just makes sense that the congressional panel would decide that. And also the only way she ends up getting a seat is like crazy fucking liberal Rupert Murdoch in space using anti-gravity to fight his cancer is like fuck you there was a second one and i bought the company pack your bags

what a bizarre second act twist it is because i love the original the the first the first john hurt scene but then it's like scene two he's like yeah i yeah, I'm on Mir now. Yeah, no, no, I'm floating. Exclusively floating at this point. I love John Hurt. John Hurt's great. I worked with John Hurt on Snowpiercer, and he was fucking amazing. He was just like, you know, he was that guy. He was the guy sitting on benches smoking, telling stories of him

and, you know, his younger years with his other actors that he was with. Simon, just phenomenal stories. He's a leader. He's, you know, he's, and we were just enamored. Everyone was enamored by him. He just looks incredible in Snowpiercer. Like, he just looks like a rag man or whatever. You know, like his face is so perfect and his beard is so

bushy i love his look in snowpiercer yeah he's phenomenal phenomenal and he's and he's great in this actually i mean it's it's he's great it's a real real character in there yeah you know and he doesn't have a lot to he doesn't have a lot to do but he really makes an impact um yeah he's great he's fully a who you know when's he bad he is in as i'm sure you all remember the harry potter movies as the wand guy like it's the 40th most important part in harry potter is the fucking wand guy right and that scene in the first harry potter movie which is not a very good movie like you know the chris columbus movie is so i advise people to go back like her is so locked into it yes and like and it's kind of an important scene because it's like you know

harry's getting his wand right i would say it's sort of columbus's best decision as a director on that movie is we need to hire someone super over qualified for the wand scene because the wand scene is like a real turnkey for the whole universe he he that's that's hurt he's he's very much a when when's he back when's he back i argue never this is a movie that reunites him with um tom scarrett for the first is it the first time since alien i think so great question yeah i mean look i i don't have scarrett's before yeah you're right god it's interesting that yeah two crew members on a sci-fi movie again. But used so differently that you never really process like, oh, he's using two alien cast members. It doesn't feel sort of like clever.

I mean, I read Zemeckis said that like the conception of the character, why i'm forgetting his name now hadden uh yes sr hadden sr hadden that it was like uh what if bill gates went kind of crazy 40 years from now like his thing was just sort of like what if a guy had that much money and just sort of went off the reserve visually it feels like he's very much modeled after Murdoch. I don't know if I'm just bringing that and it's sort of like the shiny head of it, but he just kept bringing Murdoch for me. But what he ends up being is sort of like this more genteel old man,

sort of morally level version of Elon Musk. Like it does feel like this was very much predicting a sort of a type of figure that would come into culture of just like the guy who's like i made a billion dollars i'm gonna solve shit myself working on all his his all his hysteria right i mean because remember she's come into his um one of his offices and he's seen her over the surveillance camera and he's kind of he's made the that crack decision in that moment to give her the funding right that kind of extends her work in new mexico for however long so he even though he's like a crackpot kind of eccentric he sees something in her he he sees the thing that i'm talking about jodie as an actress he

sees this spirit he sees this conviction so that when there is this other huge trillion dollar machine that's going to send human beings to a completely different dimension to talk to aliens on a pensacola beach yeah you know he understands that her moral um crackerjack compass is um in the right place you know he's he he knows that and. And you can see he's more emotional than anyone in the White House, more emotional than anyone based in science. And he can identify her as the right candidate. And I love that that's his observation to this movie. He chooses her.

Right, because he's also like, he's one of these like cowboy outlaw billionaires who's like, I trust my gut. It's about like your gumption. And she's there making like her talking points to these committees and they find ways to discredit her because she's not doing the razzle dazzle. She's not saying the things she's supposed to say. And he recognizes the way she's saying it, like the moral character and fortitude that it belies. I mean, it's great that scene where she goes in and pitches

to his company and she's kind of bombing the meeting because she's not like putting on the show enough she's not polished right yeah and then you see the camera pivot and then they get the phone call and they're like apparently you've gotten yourself a deal yeah he says you have the money and then she looks at the camera she says thanks yeah right i love because that whole speech is like yeah nuts right like you know airplanes nuts yeah go fly into the moon nuts right and i just i love the way that she's you know suggesting that something that this crazy is actually impossible be something that we should do and that we should you know i mean steady search for extraterrestrial intelligence that's right they try and kind that we should do and that we should, you know, I mean, SETI, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. That's right.

They try and kind of make it cool, I guess, with like all those, I mean, I guess they don't try and make it cool. They kind of cast like a weird misfit collection of people

in her, you know, in the research facility who need the dishes and stuff. But my other question is, I guess it's a two prong thing. Just because she listens to a bunch of dishes,

does that make her a viable candidate to go through different dimensions and go space i i this is the thing and don't you need to be put through like rigorous testing well this is the thing though the implications of this movie are so and it's not like we haven't been talking about the entire movie but the plot is essentially she hears a signal and she works at the very very large array you know and she sleeps with matthew mcconaughey back when she works at the arisibo observatory you know she's searching for life she hears the signal shuts her thing down she starts her own outlaw group funded a lot of talk about right a lot of talk about funding yes so much the first chunk of the movie there's a lot of funding thriller yeah she gets this signal from vega

which is a you know real star in the sky. And eventually, first they decipher the Hitler that's being bounced back at them in the 36th Olympics. Then they decipher this like code. And then with John Hurt's help, she kind of turns it into like a cube map for making a spaceship machine. Right? Right. Right. The aliens have given us blueprints to make something

we don't understand what it is or what it will do right comes this question of should we follow these instructions and the government's reaction is definitely concern and definitely bring in fucking mcconaughey you know to to wear a scarf like and look at the whatever but like in pretty quickly and this movie which i like kind of just makes time jumps without worrying about it like yeah at a certain point yeah yeah pretty quickly it's just like yeah whatever let's build it i don't know yeah and then like and definitely is not like yeah we'll get our top astronaut on this they're like i don't know someone will sit in it i guess while we drop it into a wormhole i guess that like when they're turning on the machine and it's going crazy and it's like flashing and then eventually it basically like pulls, you know, peep everything close.

You know, there's that sort of shot of everything kind of stretching. Like, why is no one like, wait, is this just a fucking nuclear? Like, is this just a weapon that's going to kill us? Why did we build this? Turn it off. Like, no one there is concerned that's what i like about the movie i mean i right like i i grew up she doesn't even wear a helmet griffin no she just wears this like there's no there's no oxygen going into that fucking thing harness like she's like she doesn't want a chair out of it yeah let me stand i'll plant my feet firmly on the ground she doesn't want a chair don't give me she really doesn't she's like i

don't i don't want any fucking comfort on this journey okay both of my parents are dead right and also like it wasn't in their fucking blueprints and it's like the blueprints from the people who sent us a fucking blueprints are literally just it's just a person doing like a sort of vitruvian man pose inside like a fucking you know cubic zirconia and that's it yeah it's like yeah drop it in well it will will handle the rest and everyone's like yeah i don't know we could spend a trillion dollars on this like that's fine like i i definitely i was a kid who fantasized about being an astronaut a thing that retrospect seems absolutely bananas with my temperament but i was just like oh yeah that's like the ultimate job i would want to be like an astronaut like i was always fascinated by

space travel and the idea of like searching for extraterrestrial life and stuff but i always struggled with actual hard science. Like I've only ever been able to process science through fiction. Uh, I, I like flunked out of every science class I ever took. Um, but the idea of like, I also was a kid where I didn't grow up atheist, but I think for very early age, I did not really buy into any organized religion. I think just out of the like, I don't like everyone telling me that this is what it is. I was very spiritual as a kid, but I was more sort of like abstractly curious about all of these things. And my, you know, I was the first kid, my parents, I think, tried more to raise me with Judaism because I was the first Reich.

But my sister, they barely gave a shit anymore. And it was just sort of like the perfunctory, like ceremonial aspects of things rather than any feel like deep investment in faith. But watching this movie, it does like hit a lot of the pillars of what I sort of bounce in between, where it's just like this idea of wanting to only believe in things that are absolutely based in fact, that can be like quadruple verified, and also needing to have some sort of willful naivete and optimism because the whole thing is like you know everything that doesn't make sense in this movie of like would they really hire this person to do that would they not is like all this clash and this contrast and even you get down to her character where she's like i'm a numbers gal it's just about numbers for me that's all i care about matthew mcconaughey i'm gonna fuck you one time because it's been six weeks I should probably fuck you one time girls gotta get it but then like back to science but fundamentally the whole time she has to keep on believing that this pursuit is worthwhile without evidence like it

takes so long in the movie and so long in her life for her to get any positive response for all the work that she's been putting into it. Well, there is this kind of really interesting moment when she gets to Vega and she sees David Moss on the beach and she kind of reacts as though she's in heaven. Yeah. Which would imply that she believes in a God. She kind of believes that she's experiencing some kind of miracle. And there's a kind of very interesting little shift in her performance where she goes,

no, Occam's razor. She goes, they don't want to scare me. Right. And you can, you see that scientist click in. It's just,

there's a very interesting, it's a very subtle beat. And it's a very short little moment where she kind of goes, oh my God, I, I, I believe. And then she's reminded,

no science, think, think, um, Occam, you know, no, science, think, think. That bedrock of your whole belief, Occam's razor, that simplest thing has to be true and science and math and numbers come in and she suddenly shifts

and she knows she's not with her own father, which again, in a way, is a kind of loss for her. For a sec, she wants to believe that it's really him and she goes i know but i don't believe in that i believe in them but wouldn't it there is that argument for a sec for her character she goes wouldn't it be nice if you just did believe that you could believe it was actually your father maybe it's also it's an aspect of the movie where i think zemeckis uses an impressively light touch of just like morse is really effective in those opening scenes so he makes the impact in

your mind he stays there as some sort of like emotional kind of like uh center of the movie and they don't underline this so much but it does feel like subtextually here's this girl who like lost her mother in childbirth lost a father young he raised her with this interest in space and the skies and this pursuit of like truth and knowledge and what could possibly be out there and like to some degree she is out there listening all the time because she wants to hear his voice like you get the sense that she would never admit it out loud but her greatest belief is that somehow she could find some way to communicate with her father again which goes against hard science you know and as you said she gets that moment not if you've not if you've seen frequency that's the thing oh she had seen

frequency she had seen frequency this character you know you can talk to your dead dad yeah what a potent idea that movie is it was such a we should do a hoblet miniseries i had to i just had to look that up i'm sorry to admit this but i had to look up the director of frequency you know what hoblet it would be primal fear fallen hearts fracture you got a colin farrell in there fracture which is is that the one that's about um you know i killed my wife yeah that's hopkins and gosling and he goes i killed my wife i want you to get me off i think all right it's not it's not the one that's about the jinx though that's that's a different uh no that's all good yeah yeah and then and then untraceable which is a classic in the internet murder you know much like fear.com or the net you know it's like oh

the internet what if there was a website called www.die.com is that the one where the poster is diane lane and then there's a point a clicker on her mouth yes yes a little little mouse cursor yeah let's do it unpodcastable anyway um yes no i that the the the unreality of the scene with her father is heartbreaking i would say like and also like mesmerizing and obviously it's incredibly exciting for her but it is it's i love the weird tragedy of like they're doing this to make her comfortable and it works but also like she has that moment but then you sort of like you know she moves her hands and you're like oh it's fake like you know i like that zemeckis makes it look kind of like beyond real like oh right of course like this is no she's she was right all along like you said

jamie occam's razor, this is science. This is like a hologram. And like, you know, she can barely understand it, but like this is, this is, it's also fascinating that like at this point in his career, there's all this shit where like the waves are moving backwards.

There's like the lighting doesn't match like where the source is for like, it's brightly lit. There is no sun. Right. Like he does all these things consciously to make it look unnatural to create that unease and it works and then like within a decade zemeckis is like look look it's photo real i did it on my computer and it's photo real and everyone's like no way this creeps me out like it's the opposite i only realized this just this last time watching is that she draws the beach in the beginning.

Yes, that's right. I didn't catch that until this last viewing, but I like little things like that. There's a lot of Spielberg nods in this. We're going to need a bigger antenna being one of them. It feels very similar to the ending of AI for me too, which people misinterpret as like a happy ending where it's like we've recreated a facsimile a

facsimile of your parent in order to make you comfortable but it's all underlined with like the the sort of creepiness of this is like programming right and ai ai is the best because it's like you're finally here and he's like and the alien's like sure i're finally here. And he's like, and the alien's like, sure, I'm finally here. And he's like, great, I can die. Right. Right, and I want my mother to die with me. Like, here's the last DNA strain that exists of your mother on the continuum of time and space.

We can pluck it and give you 24 hours. But there's the thing in this where Morse is switching back and forth between speaking in the voice of the alien collective and speaking in the voice of her dad. And he'll say one thing that's sort of just very objective about this is what you have to do, this is how we operate. And then he'll go, you have your mother's eyes or whatever. And she's so good at playing the like, I've waited my entire life to hear my dad say something like that again. But also,

this is really weird and creepy and not real. This is like data telling them that they should say that. But that's the thing my father would say in this simulation. Yeah. I mean, you know, the other thing is, it does remind me a lot of Silence of the Lambs because so much of Silence of the Lambs is her flashback of her seeing her own father's funeral. You know, there's, I think, a scene with her where her father kind of comes back from work. It just feels so canon for Jodie Foster, this kind of stuff. She's just right on the money for me. I never saw Maverick.

I've never seen Maverick. I need to see Maverick. Sorry. It's a good movie. There's a lot of her work that I actually haven't. I didn't see Nell. There's a lot of her work that I actually haven't, I didn't see Nell. There's a lot of her work that I haven't seen, but she's right in the pocket with this stuff.

Emotional loss, you know, the conviction, this spirit, this sense of duty. I have to do this. I'm going to prove that I can do this. You know, I guess a lot of it is kind of metamorphosis much sounds lambs is all about metamorphosis this is kind of very similar i have to do this thing and i'm gonna do it and she does um i i find these scenes so effective and when she doesn't uh you know she's one of the best i think you'd like nell because it is kind of

just that's just the jodie foster show for what you're talking about just absolute intensity and sincerity and like very you know it's not griff have you seen nell i've never seen now no it's not a great movie it's an interesting movie but like but she you know it's really it's just all her i want to tell you guys something in the book um i've been sort of reading about uh the the differences between the movie and the book um sr haddon doesn't get cancer he goes into space orbit fakes his death is cryogenically frozen and shoots himself into space being like when whenever the aliens come they'll wake me up like he's even more bananas in the book essentially uh i just like that um what is there anything else major i mean that's we we didn't we talked

about this look the shot you can look at it on youtube it's great we've talked about it in other episodes the mirror shot yeah um but it is a power i love i love the use of it i you know like her dad is dead the world is backwards all of a sudden like i think it's i think it is a power. I love the use of it. I, you know, like her dad is dead. The world is backwards all of a sudden. Like, I think it's, I think it is the perfect kind of Zemeckis, like, bit of trickery, like where he's sort of like showing off, but it has an emotional purpose. Like, I'll stick up for that shot any day. Yeah, it's also like you need that shot to be flashy in the same way that Jake Busey's face is flashy because it is this thing

that kind of drives the rest of her life in that problem solving, that single-minded, like, I'm going to figure things out way where she's forever haunted by the idea of like,

if I had also kept the pills downstairs, we'd have made it in time. Like, it crystallizes those final seconds of that run to the cabinet of like, is that the time that she lost that she could have used to save him? Yeah, because the priest outside

of her house says, it's just kind of God's will, which is the beginning of her going, well, fuck it. I don't like that. She responds, which is like, well, actually science would say if he just had the pills 10, 20 seconds, 2 minutes earlier, he would have survived. So he kind of sets that argument really, really well.

This is from that New York Times piece. Zemeckis said, I was raised a Catholic on the south side of Chicago, and I felt I had to undo a lot of serious damage. But as I was getting older, I began coming off my absolutely young, arrogant, agnostic beliefs. As I was getting older, I began coming off my absolutely young, arrogant, agnostic beliefs. I was thinking more about coming to terms with human spirituality, but without the judgments and indoctrination that come from being in the church. I've tried to come to peace with it, and it's no longer a demon in my life. Like, that's an interesting outlook for a guy making this movie at that moment. Right. It's a movie that every time after I finish watching it, I go, you know what?

Maybe I should be a little bit more open to the idea of spirituality maybe I should be it's so hard not to give in to the romanticism of it whenever I do I give into it in the most abstract way possible I start just sort of spinning off

into different thoughts outside of what is commonly perpetuated and they'll always come crashing back down to like but if that were the case then why hasn't this happened why has this happened whatever I'll like back it up with you know well earned skepticism your cynical self

comes out in the end but it is like I feel I don't know the things Zemeckis is talking about is that like sort of as a child, it's easy to believe, especially if you're raised with it. As you start developing a slightly more adult brain in your teenage years, in your 20s, it's very easy to fact check it. And then I do think there's a point in like, you know, the later areas of your life where you come back around to it and you're like, I just need fucking comfort now. Like I've spent so much time being angry and trying to change everything around me. I would rather reinvest in the idea of something taking care of me.

I don't see myself getting to that point, but it also, I don't know, it is compelling. And it's like, it's such compelling territory to make a movie about. It's such compelling territory to make a movie about. For all these sort of first contact movies, very few of them deal with that tension. Because it is like, if aliens exist, why wouldn't we have heard from them by now? Isn't that as foolhardy as believing that God exists even though we haven't seen proof of him? You know, outside of potato chips or whatever you want to believe. I believe you're referring to the Fermi paradox. Yes.

I'm going to add a little bit of spice to the rest of this recording. I have 16% of battery left. Oh. And I can't plug it in because the mic is plugged into that. Oh. That's fine. We are almost done, I will say. Yeah.

We have an interesting dilemma, guys. I've been looking at it incrementally as we've been going, and I figured 16% is a good time to tell you. I appreciate it. No, that's fine. Can you lower the brightness on your screen? I can barely see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As it's been going i've been like 20%

do i say it but then like you on 20% we were talking about like really big themes yeah right really intense personal things i can't i can't interrupt him on that so but i thought 16 is probably a good baseline to just kind of interrupt okay so let's speed track i feel like we've done a good job actually we've done everything I was literally about to ask you guys, are there scenes that we haven't mentioned that you want to bring up? Because I feel like we have talked about everything. There's just one moment that I really love,

which is when McConaughey's on Larry, it's very quick, when McConaughey's on Larry King and he's saying how technology is isolating us, actually, like it does a lot of good, but at the end, it's kind of making us more alone, feeling emptier. And it kind of cuts to the earth. And as he's kind of pontificating about his own belief and how technology is ruining the world is actually when aliens are sending their signal and trying to communicate with us.

We're just not listening. And, you know, and Jody kind of says, you know know in another scene that kind of echoes that which is um well they've been sending the signal for 26 years yeah yes yeah we just we just haven't received it we just haven't been listening we just never right exactly yeah and I love that I just I love the idea that right because that that that confirms the purpose of her work like it's not just like well we didn't didn't need SETI. Like they, they get in touch when they get in touch. No,

like she had to be listening and scanning the sky and like, yes. Desperately searching for, yeah. It gets back to the blind faith element of it, of like, in order to pursue this kind of work and to believe that you are capable of making sort of like groundbreaking discoveries,

you have to believe there's something out there that just hasn't been noticed up until this point. Like that's the Fermi paradox thing. It's not that they haven't tried to contact us. It's that no one's been able to hear it yet. And that requires like a little bit of willful naivete to believe in yourself. Faith, take it on faith.

That's the ironic little twist at the end of the movie. Right, you know, it's like she, yeah. Before you run out of battery, and because. You know, it's like she, yeah. Before you run out of battery, and because we have to do the box office game, I just quickly want to do a little corner with you. Yeah, yeah. Because you were pushing very hard for Zemeckis. You and I were DMing back and forth

when Zemeckis was starting to gain some steam. Humble brag. And March Madness. Yeah, humble brag. Yeah, I was fucking DMing with Tintin, baby. And I said, like, is there one you'd want to do? And you said, Death Accomms Your Contact, two of my favorite movies.

And we were never going to force you to do one of them, but I was so fascinated because you were in Tintin. You also worked on King Kong, where it has this big motion capture performance in it. You have experience with that stuff firsthand. And within, like, you know, five years after this movie,

Zemeckis is all in on motion capture, stuck there for a decade. And I feel like Tintin for me, what makes that movie such a breakthrough in so many ways is that's like the first time where I think there are successfully naturalistic mocap performances. So often the ones that work are actors like Andy Serkis, who had a really sort of facile understanding of theatricality and understanding what you needed to push through in order to have those performances registered.

When you get to the Zemeckis movies, it's the dead-eyed zombie animatronic thing. But Tintin is a very low-key character. He is like a thoughtful, you know, sort of like reserved, reactionary character in a lot of ways. And yet that feels like a full bodied performance to me in a way that none of the Zemeckis movies were able to do. Did you find, was the technology just at a point where it was able to pick up on that or was there anything you had to adjust in your technique to figure out how to make that work i mean it was yes it's hard to say because you know what andy did with peter on all those um rings movies was extraordinary and that i think i mean correct me if i'm wrong but i think that predates all of zemeckis's mocap stuff right it does yeah yes yeah so so to me it's kind of i mean i know that golem

isn't necessarily lifelike and he is more much kind of much more of a creature than anything else so you can kind of do a little bit more in terms of the design of the character you're taking away from a human and turning it into something different um whereas a lot of zemeckis and stuff is very much trying to get as close to a photorealistic human as you possibly can so that separates it a little bit but also when i did tintin and worked with all um you know the mocap guys and stuff they were always kind of like you know this technology is going to change next week yeah it's going to change on the next film it's going to change by the next film. It's going to change by the time Cameron gets his hands on it again. It's going to change by the next Ips movie.

So if I went and saw what they're doing on Avatar down in New Zealand, I wouldn't even know what that was because it doesn't look anything like what we were doing on Tintin. So it's such a technology that has advanced and changed so quickly

that it really, for me, I think it comes down to the technology because I think the performers are always, you're always trying to do honest stuff. You're always trying to, um, get to the truth. And, and certainly with mocap, you have to push through the technology. Like that was one thing that Andy always taught me and, and, and told me was you have to kind of articulate a little bit more, like really try and get through the, um, through the technology. And we would have panels of, you know, the Tintin panels all over the mocap stage.

So I think it's just more the technology catching up. I'd be interested to see if he did it now, if some of those movies would have been more successful in terms of the rendering and how we can view those characters. I just think maybe that would be different because there's no question rendering and how we can view those characters. I just think maybe that would be different because there's no question Jim Carrey can push

through the technology. Right. That's not a problem of the actor. It must be more of the rendering and the technology that they had

at their fingertips. Yeah, exactly. Tintin 2, please. Sorry. I know. I've asked for it before. Tintin 2, too. I know.

I know, if only. We'll see i mean it's always something they've always talked about you know but nothing concrete it's also i mean the beauty of motion capture you could do it 30 years from now you don't you can't age out of playing tintin is a 60 year old to be honest but i don't know okay 15 years yeah i would do it i mean it's great let's play the box office game box office games jamie you alluded to contact going up against i know i hope i didn't blow it no so it opens number two but it's the fourth of july movie right whatever opened the fourth of july still number one so contact opens to 20 million it makes 100 domestic about 160 worldwide so that's good that's big legs big legs yeah um and it holds like a 22 hold next week but what's number one griffin

men in black july 97 men in black big willie weekend that's right that's right his second fourth of july home run in a row the definitive new york 90s movie one of the greatest films ever made men in black uh number three is a big action movie two stars also a great film i mean also just a great 90s action movie i was gonna guess conspiracy theory but then i don't think you would call that a great film right great. Great movie. Two big stars. Great. Two male, male and female.

Two male stars. 97. Great action movie. And I would say, this is my new favorite thing, is a new, a genre I love, ham war. You got two kinds of ham going up against each other.

Oh boy. Cause I, Oh, it's face off? It's face off. It's face off. The ultimate ham war. It's, it's face-off? It's face-off. It's face-off. The ultimate hand-war. Right.

It's prosciutto versus, like, I don't know. Honey-baked. I don't know. Black Forest. Cage is honey-baked. There's a lot. Cage is honey-baked. I don't know what Travolta is.

Travolta's something weird. He's like deli meat. Anyway. Travolta's boar's head. Face-off. Jamie, face-off off are you a fan of face off you want to absolutely i mean i've only seen it once but it was it's terrifying as a child oh it is terrifying especially when he has no face um well there's a lot of uneasy stuff is dominic swain in that yes uh yeah no no uneasy stuff in that. All the family stuff is really creepy. There's a waterfall.

We've got magnet prison. I mean, some of the scariest concepts in all of film. Right. All right. Number four, Disney movie. Number four Disney movie would be Hercules. That's right. There you go.

Nailed it. I've said this before on the show. At the time I walked out of Hercules, I turned to my dad. I said, that's tied. It is tied with Toy Story for the best movie I've ever seen.

And it is wild that I still think Toy Story is about as good a movie I've ever seen. And I don't even like Hercules anymore. Like, I've twice

in the last 10 years rewatched it and gone like, yeah, not for me. I'm excited to re-watch hercules i haven't seen in years yeah i remember liking hercules i would love to have a reason to re-watch hercules wait james woods no yeah that's right it might be my favorite woods performance i have to say that's the one thing that holds up perfectly for me favorite woods come on there's too many options come on they could i could talk all day

his hair is fire it is it's very cool very cool number five yeah rom-com big movie yeah all right well you got it there you go i remember 97 it was a big year i was activated i was reading entertainment yeah good Here's the thing. Cage con air is number eight. So cage has two movies. My God, which is huge. And then you've also got a Batman and Robin and the lost world Jurassic park.

So you've got these two giant, you know, sequels. Yeah. One of which is underperforming. One of which is not, but then also out to see, you know, jack lemon lemon and

walter mathau yeah is number six is just sort of hanging out that was out i don't know there's some weird shit peak hollywood like peak like we figured out this machinery it's just humming along because yeah jesus you got speed two liar liar austin powers also look at look at the money on liar liar oh look how much money that made huge and jamie tell me how many weeks liar liar has been in the box office what week of release this is oh is it like are we in 10 april 17 week 17 holy shit and it's still making a million bucks what is it like 180 its final gross is 181 made 300 worldwide in 1997 he can't lie he doesn't lie that guy you look at this and you have like you have star vehicles you have franchises you know you have high concept action films, right? You have every shot. Guys, guys, guys,

remember movies, the movie. I miss him. God, I miss him so bad. Jamie, how's it this year? Just fucking suck.

Fucking suck. Also, we don't even fucking know who's president. I know. I mean, fuck, this is a, what's your battery?

Jamie, when I, when I pull up deadline and it says like shocker, Amblin film overperforms with $3 million weekend. And I go, what is this movie? I've never heard about it. Just by process of elimination because it's on 20 drive-in screens. It's the number one movie in America.

Oh, boy. Jamie, what's your battery at? 9%. We could talk about Mank for a second. We could talk about Mank for a second. We could talk about Manc for a second. Have you guys seen Manc yet? Yeah, I've seen Manc. Have you seen Manc? Yeah.

You Manced? Oh my God. You Manced. How good is Manc? Jamie, I'm going to DM you. I have a lot to say about Manc. I'm very excited about Manc. Good, good, good.

Yeah, I don't know. It's been such a bad year. I mean, that's basically the only thing that we have to look forward to is Manc. Kind of. Right, I don't know. It's been such a bad year. I mean, that's basically the only thing that we have to look forward to. Yeah. Kind of. Right. Basically.

Pretty much. You're flying out to film a movie tomorrow on election day. Can you say what the movie is? I'm curious just what it feels like. Is this the first thing you've done since the pandemic started? Since lockdown, yeah. Yeah. Well, I did some reshot. feels like is this is the first thing you've done since the pandemic started since lockdown yeah yeah well i did some reshoot i did it um i'm in a tom clancy film with michael b jordan that we did some i'm very excited for that movie fyi please without remorse i did some reshoots on over you

know during lockdown um which was scary and everything because you know the masks and the whole covid protocols and everything um so but this know, the masks and the whole COVID protocols and everything. But this will be the first one that I'm starting since lockdown, yeah? So we'll see how it goes. I mean, it's insane. I mean, nothing will be the same for an actor. I mean, you know, you're kind of, the distancing, the rigorous testing every week, the, you know,

the distance from your director, just the distance. You know, film sets are places that are communal. They are places where you stand in close proximity and you huddle together and you speak and you complain. And that is just gone because there's a guy in a blue jacket that just keeps coming around going too close. Too close for too long, so go away.

Do you find, especially having done reshoots for something that you originally shot pre-pandemic did it change your process at all like do you find yourselves having do you find yourself having to adjust anything and your creative sort of workflow as an actor to overcome the weirdness of it or is there anything you feel like you need to replace when the sort of communal collaborative aspect of it is a little more distant? I mean, because with the Clancy thing, it's, you know, we're wearing military gear and helmets and headsets.

So you're already kind of like at a disadvantage because you can't hear anything anywhere. But then you throw people in masks, kind of trying to... It's just kind of like at a disadvantage because you can't hear anything anywhere, but then you throw people in masks, kind of trying to, it's just kind of, it makes it impossible. So, I mean, it doesn't really change any process necessarily. It's just sad because, you know, I have a lot of fun on film sets. I grew up on film sets. I love making movies.

I love the energy of film sets. I love the talent and the craft that people bring every day to their jobs and, and, and having it so compartmentalized where people in zone A can't go in zone B, you know, it just, it creates an atmosphere that isn't, it's not the same. And I know that we have to do this for people's safety and everything, and it's the right thing to do, but it's just, um, yeah, it's a process of readjustment, I suppose.ment i suppose they're also i mean look there are a ton of reasons to want to work in movies but for movie nerds like ourselves ultimately it's like you want to sit next to john hurt on a park bench while he chain smokes cigarettes and tells you about his entire career like that's like the best

shit about working in movies especially when you remove the final product from the equation, which you can't really control. And I just feel like, I don't know, I'm too neurotic to try to do anything during this. But... Oh, no, I'm neurotic. Sure, sure, sure. Believe me. There's also a lot less demand for me to do things than there is for you uh i'm gonna be in like helmets and goggles and gloves i'm gonna look like a freak tomorrow on the planet i'm gonna make all my family look like a freak too i just think i mean it's what you said it's i'm gonna feel very sad the first time i'm back on a set where even if it's post-vaccine

there are just more protocols in place and it's harder to just casually walk up to whatever great character actor and just like try to get them spewing stories about everything. It's saying that if I, it's saying that my battery's going to go into sleep. Wow. So I'm nervous. Okay.

I want to like somehow like stop the record, like at least save the recording. Can I press stop send your final message send your final message that will be carried throughout the cosmos before you stop well it's pointless I was going to say go vote but it's fucking pointless

because I've already voted goodbye Jamie he served us valiantly I'm so glad we finally got him on it's been such a long time coming alright so guys are you ready to get started? Oh, no. What? What's up? Look at his background!

Ben, are you in a wormhole, Ben? Wait, where's Jamie? Ben, we finished the episode. Jamie just left. What are you talking about? It felt like just seconds. We recorded for two hours. Oh my god. Yeah, we did about a gentleman's two. Maybe just a little longer.

That's crazy. God, I forgot to tell Jamie that the Yancey Street gang says hello. Damn it. Oh, fuck. That would have been so funny. That would have been so funny. That is so fucking funny. Anyway, also, Ben, why are you in a dodecahedron?

Is that your new studio or your new recording equipment? He's still in the wormhole. No, but he's inside a dodecahedron. All right, I don't know. David, I don't know what that is. Yeah, define dodecahedron for us, brain. It's a 12-sided structure. Oh, boy.

Wait a second. This is weird. Yep. I just got Jamie's audio file in the Dropbox. We recorded under two hours, around two hours. Around two hours, right. This says his file is 18 hours long. Oh, my God.

Why is it called Manifesto? Fuck fuck do we release this could the public handle this i mean they seem to have responded to like lower phi audio pretty well i think they're gonna love they're obsessed with that they love it look i'm so glad that people have been big fans of our two big bits this mini series one leaving in bathroom breaks and two me sabotaging my own audio record they were ambitious we did their big swings we didn't know people would like them the bathroom i think was next level and i was gonna say credit to us that they're like i so i thought it was gonna be a bit when there's just 30 second pause while there's a bathroom break. But then nothing.

It wasn't addressed. But is that the bit? Like people were just like. Hodgman called me and he was like, I'm sorry. I needed to call to discuss this. I listened to it three times to try to parse out what the bit was. And then I got it. You guys are the Andy Kaufman of podcasting.

I really appreciate it. And I was like, John, we forgot to cut it out. But he came to me and he was like, I see it. I see the artistry of what you did. It took several times. Anyway, we're done. Griffin, please wrap us up. We're done. I hope everyone enjoyed this crispy, clean audio.

I apologize for the last two episodes. There's one more that might be affected, but hopefully not. It's good. Ben says it's good. We've come up with a solution. Great. Okay. So then apologies for the two episodes in which I fucked up and had my input set incorrectly.

We were recording. We did like five episodes in six days. That's the other thing. Yeah, it was a weird rush. Yeah. Because Griffin, you know, we went out, we did our drive-in thing. We did it. six days that's the other thing yeah it was a weird rush yeah yeah because griffin there was a rush you you know you we went out we did our drive-in thing we did it right next month yeah really excited about that on patreon where we like kind of just captured a bunch of field audio

right but i forgot to reset the inputs after that and it was like we recorded like four consecutive nights in a row. I apologize. I'll say this. I guarantee you, however frustrated you felt listening to it, I feel more frustrated about Ed doing it. I assure you. But that was our episode with Ten-Ten.

It's fucking wild that he listens to our show, right? Insane. I know I've been saying that a lot this miniseries and will continue to say it on future episodes of the miniseries, but it is very bizarre. Wild and delightful. A lovely man. It's such a big fan of his. Lovely man.

But it's also, I just do, I zoom out, and I do strongly believe he's one of the best actors of his generation. Oh, he rules. And I think he has kind of a perfect career in that he was like like it's kind of stunning especially like compared to Jodie Foster how he is similarly transcended past a child career especially one

where he had such a big role at such a big young age where he's the title character and has gone on to work with so many incredible people he's worked with great directors but like you know come on this is his episode let's not let's not embarrass him here like gushing about him okay fine i'll stop i guess he'll never listen to this one though

he's a piece of shit he's an overrated hack tintin blows oh boy no it's for losers you couldn't even say that with a straight face i can't even say it with a straight face. I can't even say it. I'm crying. I'm crying. Tintin rules. Tintin's one of my best movie friends. He rules. He's got a nose for a great story and he loves adventure. He's one of my best friends. He rules.

He's got a white dog and his best friend is a drunken sea captain. A.K.A. Snowy. I mean, talk about squad goals. All I need in life? My little white dog and my drunken sea captain. I'm a boy reporter. Sign me up for adventure.

Thank you all for listening. Yep. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to Antje for her social media, Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork, Lane Montgomery for our theme song. Thanks to Antje for her social media, Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork, Lane Montgomery for our theme song. Go to our Shopify page for some real nerdy merch

and go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit and go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features. We're around in the corner on the Alien franchise starting to get into those big questions of uh god uh and space uh a la ridley scott um tune in next week for

what lies beneath right uh yeah three year gap then two movies in the same year i always forget which goes first yes no yeah next is what lies beneath yes yeah so tune in next week for what lies beneath with starly kind starly kind are very special guests yes on what lies beneath and look what else is there to say but and as always Jake Ducey's a dang-ass freak.